Terra-Petra was honored to be a part of NBCUniversal’s “The Wizarding World of Harry Potter” at Universal Studios Hollywood. It is truly a remarkable attraction! Guests are invited to explore Harry Potter’s “world” through the opportunity to visit Hogwarts Castle, embark on thrilling rides, and enjoy its authentic food and beverage at multiple locations.

The Main Attraction Building stands 75 feet tall and has an approximate footprint of 78,000 sq. ft. Portions of the structure lie below-grade, and are supported on piles and pile caps, with a show floor that is cantilevered within the shell of the building. An additional 10, single story, slab on grade buildings having a cumulative footprint of approximately 80,000 sq. ft. were also constructed to complete the World of Harry Potter.

To get details about Terra-Petra’s involvment with the project, contact Justin Conaway, Terra-Petra VP/General Manager: 213-458-0494.

Renderings released Monday, Aug. 17, 2015 show the design of the proposed NFL stadium in Carson. Courtesy of MANICA [via DailyBreeze.com]

Terra-Petra is excited to be involved in the process of bringing football back to Los Angeles. After over two decades of being without a professional football team, the city will (potentially) play host to two NFL teams: San Diego Chargers and Oakland Raiders (possibly three, including the St. Louis Ram’s possible relocation to the old Hollywood Park site in Inglewood, California).

For the purpose of the Chargers and or Raiders move(s), a nearly $1.7-billion stadium is proposed to be constructed adjacent to the 405 freeway in the City of Carson, California–atop an existing landfill. Terra-Petra has nearly 12 years of design work history with said landfill.

Originally intended to be redeveloped into a shopping outlet, the site has gone through many iterations of planned developments. Terra-Petra’s role throughout these iterations has remain unchanged and will involve designing a methane mitigation system to protect any structure constructed above the landfill from vapor intrusion.

As with all landfills, the soils on site have been left rife with environmental problems that are still quite a way from being completely remediated. Environmental cleanup will involve removing industrial solvents, heavy metals, arsenic, and pesticides which have compiled over the years. Another environmental firm with whom Terra-Petra has formed a strategic alliance will be in charge of the environmental cleanup of the site.

It is estimated that the remediation process is about 80% complete, which leaves about a year of environmental work left to be done. Once the cleanup is complete, the developer can proceed with installing the methane mitigation system.

At this point it remains unclear if the construction of this NFL stadium is a go. Terra-Petra, along with football fans across Los Angeles County, remains hopeful that the site is selected as the home of either one or two NFL teams. It is clear, however, that a methane mitigation system will be essential to protect any type of building constructed on the site in the future.

The question has taunted scientists for nearly 50 years, ever since the Mariner 7 spacecraft detected a whiff of the gas near the south pole of Mars. Researchers retracted the finding a month later after realizing that the signal was in fact coming from carbon dioxide ice.

Then in 2003 and 2004, earthbound telescopes and orbiting spacecraft rekindled the mystery with reports of large methane clouds in Mars’ atmosphere. Most of Earth’s methane comes from living organisms, though a small fraction can form when rocks and hot water interact. A burp of methane on Marswould indicate that the planet might be more alive than previously thought — whether biologically or geologically. But the “plumes” mysteriously vanished a few years later, sparking intense debate over whether they might have been seasonal, or the results of flawed measurements. [Mars Methane: Could It Mean Life? (Video)]

NASA’s Curiosity roverwould resolve the matter, everyone hoped. The rover sampled Mars’s atmosphere six times for methane between October 2012 and June 2013 — and detected none. But the case for Martian methane remained far from settled. A few months later, Curiosity detected a sudden burst of the gas in four measurements over a period of two months.

Working hard to rule out potential anomalies and monitor the evolution of the burst over time, the Curiosity team waited an entire year before announcing the new results at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union in December 2014. A paper was published in the journal Science in January 2015. Whether microbes lurking below the Martian surface or geology was at play, the Red Planet could well be alive in some way after all.

And yet, a researcher remains skeptical. Kevin Zahnle, a scientist at NASA’s Ames Researcher Center in Moffett Field, California, who was not involved with the discovery, voiced his concerns last month in a seminar hosted by the NASA Astrobiology Institute’s Virtual Planetary Lab.

“I am convinced that they really are seeing methane,” he said. “But I’m thinking that it has to be coming from the rover.”